April 7, 2013 – May 24, 2013

Opening Reception

Saturday, April 6, 2013, 6pm - 8pm

George Nick - Artist Talk

Sunday, April 28, 2013, 3pm

About the Exhibit

Danforth Art is pleased to present a selection of landscape paintings by nine artists whose works explore a tradition of expressive landscape. From paintings created in the last quarter of the 20th century right up to the present, viewers are presented with work use a variety of approached to describe place.
Works in the Rosenberg Gallery were all created en plein air—directly from nature in the out-of-doors. Jason Berger, Jack Kramer, and Francesco Carbone, former Museum School graduates who studied under Karle Zerbe and members of the Direct Vision Group, all use a painterly approach, but are firm in their desire to accurately represent the world. Their works contrast with slightly later paintings by George Nick and his former Mass Art student Eric Aho. Nick feels so strongly about time and place that he routinely signs and dates work upon completion. Aho, who at first followed Nick’s example in working outside, now creates paintings in his studio to translate a more visionary version of the landscape to canvas.

This sense of visionary landscape continues in a second part of the show, located in Danforth Art’s Swartz Gallery. Bernard Chaet’s heightened color describes the sea at a transformative time of day, sunrise or sunset, with emotional swirls of color. Large paintings by Joan Snyder and John Walker are more somber, but just as emotive. Finally, landscapes by Jon Imber might at first seem abstract, before upon careful observation the horizon line will present itself as a clue to reading his final work.